While thousands of his constituents left homeless by Hurricane Sandy were still suffering in the cold, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie found time to make a self-aggrandizing appearance on the Saturday Night Live program. He then informed New Jersey residents that taxes would have to be increased in order to pay for reconstruction efforts that have yet to begin.

As if this weren’t sufficiently aggravating, some residents of New Jersey’s Seaside Heights who saw their homes ravaged by the storm were slapped with a bureaucratic after-shock: They found demolition notices warning that their homes would be demolished by November 30, unless they could repair the structural damage by that date. Residents would be granted a hearing, but faced fines of $2,000 a week if they couldn’t comply with the clean-up order.

In storm-wrecked areas of both New York and New Jersey, looting is commonplace, and police have provided no discernible protection. However, police continue to issue parking and traffic tickets, continuing to harvest revenue on behalf of a government that has been manifestly useless in carrying out its supposedly indispensable functions in protection of liberty and property.